Question

Hello I am completely confused between json and ajax. When would what be used. I work with PHP on the server side. I regularly use ajax to receive data asynchronously, without invoking a page load. I use php’s json functions to pass data to javascript. But I just started learning jQuery, and I am completely confused when to use function ajax and when to use json. Can somebody help me out with this, thanks.

Answer 1

I assume you are referring to the jQuery .getJSON() method.

This method is simply a shorthand way of using the jQuery .ajax() method with JSON data. .getJSON() is equivalent to:

$.ajax({
  url: url,
  dataType: 'json',
  data: data,
  success: callback
});

So, you can make use of .getJSON() if you will be retrieving JSON data from the server. The data will automatically be parsed with the jQuery.parseJSON() method.

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In more general terms AJAX is a way to asynchronously retrieve information from a server. JSON is a way to format data…. but I assume you knew this already, and you were asking specifically about the two jQuery methods I mentioned.